


The Taste of Blood

by underoriginal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, please note the violence warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underoriginal/pseuds/underoriginal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock is accused of being Daredevil. This ends poorly for just about everyone except Matt himself.</p><p>Written for the Daredevil kinkmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Blood

Matt honestly never put much thought into what would happen if he got caught, at least not for a really long time. He figured he would be arrested, thrown in jail, or more likely killed and he had come to terms with that the first night. Matt, as a general rule, doesn't put a lot of thought into what happens at all. But Foggy doesn't really like Matt's "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" attitude towards a potential life sentence and they end up hashing out a plan.

This turns out to be pretty useful when cops knock on Matt's door at four in the morning.

He goes with them, cooperates with little more than his quiet life at the idea that he could possibly be a vigilante, and insists on being allowed to contact his lawyer. He picks Jeri Hogarth because Foggy wouldn't be able to dodge the conflict of interest and because he and Jessica have run into each other a few times.

Hogarth likes to play things by the rules. Karen raises hell at the Bulletin about putting a blind man in jail with hardened gangbangers who think they have a grudge against him, but the wheels of justice are inexorable.

They put him in general population, which is almost unspeakably cruel, but he doesn't protest. It's not in his nature. They take away his cane. The police don't really believe he would use it as a weapon, but someone could steal it from him. So instead he gets a young guard named Morris. Morris has a nervous twitch and too much body spray, but he makes for half decent company when they go into the yard or the cafeteria.

Most of the time, Morris stays in the office, browsing the internet, and Matt stays in his cell. His newfound colleagues snarl insults and threats at him until he begs Morris in a broken voice to lock him in so the other prisoners can't get to him. He sits on the cold stone floor and meditates and listens to the lions outside his cage.

He listens to a lot of things. He's learned to tune out most of what he hears, but now he unlearns what Stick taught him. Some of it anyway. The gangs whisper to each other in the dead of night, keeping their voices low so the guards don't hear. The guards don't hear. Matt does. Even people who he's fought tend to underestimate his hearing and Hogarth at least managed to convince the judge to keep him away from people he captured. Instead, he gets the ones who hate him for what he did to their friends but who still think that they can take him.

By Monday of the third week, he's started getting bored.

On the Friday of the third week, Foggy comes to visit him. They talk for a long time, but it's what Foggy doesn't say that matters. His case hasn't gone to trial yet, but it's almost solid enough to exonerate him completely. They only need one last step.

Foggy leaves and Matt doesn't smile because Matt has discipline and self control and no one, not even Morris who guides him everywhere, can tell how fast his heart is beating or how every tendon in his body sings for joy.

He asks Morris to take him down to the yard. He says he needs some fresh air. Morris doesn't want to, thinks it could be dangerous, surrounded by so many people who want him to die slowly and painfully. Morris doesn't know the first thing about danger. Matt can't pull off the helpless blind guy as well as he used to but he doesn't have a cane and he doesn't have glasses and he knows how to make his eyes water so it looks like he's fighting back tears of frustration. It doesn't take long for Morris to relent.

Matt has been planning, but so have the gangs. As soon as he steps foot in the yard, a pair of hardened criminals slam the doors shut behind him, barring them with huge iron beams that they must have spent weeks digging up in secret. Matt idly wonders what they would have done if he never came out to the yard. Before he can think too long about it, another man rips Morris away from him, grabbing Morris's gun and pointing it at him.

"Morris?" Matt asks, his voice trembling with false fear and bone deep anticipation. "Morris, what's happening?"

"Shut the fuck up!" a man yells, his voice deep, boiling with fury. "You're the bastard that got my whole gang caught!"

Matt's surrounded, cut off from any guards, and the only other way out is an eight foot tall barbed wire fence. As soon as someone makes a move, it'll turn into an all out brawl and the fact that nothing's happened yet means that the guards in the towers don't have a line of sight to shoot his assailants. He's facing twenty-six men who all want a piece of him. 

Matt grins. He can't help it. "You threatening my guard?" he asks politely.

"I'll rip you to shreds, motherfucker," the man snarls.

Matt waves his hand idly. "Yeah, yeah but are you gonna go after Morris too?"

"Why wouldn't I?" the man asks. The only reason that Matt hasn't been attacked yet is because he's got the man talking.

Matt shrugs. "Seems a bit unnecessary," he points out.

"You mean like beating my men bloody for trying to earn a living?" the man growls.

"Something like that," Matt says.

The man turns and punches Morris in the gut, hard enough that Matt can taste the tang of blood in the air. Matt grins so wide he feels like his face is gonna split in two. The prisoners are laughing at him, jeering that he's either insane or stupid or both to be grinning.

Matt goes to work.

Step forward, half turn, grab a wrist and snap it. The screams of pain echo off the next bodies to charge him. Divert the force, dodge a punch, shoulder snap, let the punch hit someone else. Hands grab his arms, he throws his head back, headbutting the men behind him and kicking the men in front of him. Morris gets out of the way. He's young, but not stupid. Matt ducks and weaves and slams his fist into a jaw hard enough that he feels a tooth split in half. He reaches the man who grabbed the gun, breaks his wrist, breaks his arm, dislocates his shoulder, pistolwhips him until he passes out.

He scrambles back from his opponents, holding the gun out like a flashlight chasing away the darkness until he has space to breathe. He drops the bullets from the gun and the slight hint of fear changes to mockery as they all charge as one mass.

They try to herd him into the barbed wire fence. They succeed because that was where he wanted to go. Wire mesh is easy to climb, even barehanded, even as he feel his joints strain. He could smell the rust and it's thicker than he had hoped. He rips the barbed wire from the fence, his hands slick with blood. It catches and sticks, hanging down from the fence, but he has a decent length to work with, space to move.

They come after him, but he beats them back with a fistful of razors, steel shards trailing behind him. He can't go too far, they can dance away from him, but they're pissed off and on top of that the stench of fear is thickening. He's bleeding, blind, and bound to a fence, but he's still grinning and they're still falling. For a long moment, everyone pauses, a stalemate while they decide if it's worth it to keep fighting him.

From the corner where he hid himself, Morris sneezes. Matt moves, wrapping his oil-slick fist around the closest man's throat, using him as a shield while the rest attack. The man gouges at his eyes instinctively, but Matt has no reason to care what happens to his eyes and the man passes out before he can do much damage.

By now there are only four men left standing. Matt is bleeding badly from his hands and his eyes and his mouth and his forehead, but it's been almost a month since he got a chance to fight and he needs it, craves it. He finishes the rest of them off in short order.

When the guards finally break down the door to rescue him, they find him sitting in the middle of the yard, his would be assailants scattered around him like pebbles after an avalanche. Blood leaks from his eyes like tears, but his face is blank and peaceful.

"What the hell happened here?" the commander asks.

Matt turns his head towards him. "They attacked my guard. I rescued him."

He doesn't get the charges dropped because it's pretty damn obvious that he's Daredevil. Instead, he gets to set a precedent as the first technically legal vigilante in New York, provided he provides sufficient evidence of guilt along with the guilty parties. It's either that or throw him in prison and no one really wants to deal with cruel and unusual punishment accusations from every attorney of every prisoner except for Matt Murdock.


End file.
